6 Questions to Consider
- Consider the following five alleged facts. How would you go about doubting them? Feel free to make use of the doctor’s seven modes if they are useful.
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- The aroma of freshly brewed coffee is much nicer than the aroma of an angry skunk.
- It is impossible for a human being to levitate using only their own powers.
- Two plus seven equals nine.
- Canada is larger than India.
- The total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time and is constant if and only if all processes are reversible. (This is called “the second law of thermodynamics.”)
- It is sometimes said that the Academic Skeptics believed that nothing can be known, but the Pyrrhonian Skeptics doubted even this. Which group do you think is more skeptical? Justify your answer.
- It seems very odd to say, “I know X, but I’m not sure of it.” (Try out some examples.) But did anything in the JTB+ account of knowledge suggest that knowledge requires being sure of something? Why does it seem odd to us to say we are not sure of the things we think we know? Or does it?